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THE SARASOTA OBSERVER ,

By: Troy Schnelle

Rena Greenberg speaks with a motherly, hypnotic tone that coaxes you into a trance and melts away the worries of the day. She developed her soothing skills over the last 15 years. The New York native had a health breakdown at age 25 and came to Siesta Key in 1990 to launch Wellness Seminars, Inc.

Since then, she’s trained in hypnosis, completed a master’s degree in divinity and trained thousands of people to change their “inner programming.” Here’s what she means by that: “We create mental movies of things we don’t want to do, and then we do those things. Our subconscious doesn’t know the difference. Really, we can imagine what we want to do. Say you want to wake up in the morning and go for a long run. It’s learning to use our imagination for our benefit instead of our harm.”

To some, it might some like trite New Age gobbledygook, or, worse yet, just another diet plan. But Greenberg insists the change becomes easy, even automatic — “like filling your car up with gas when you’re about to run out.”

Her book, “The Right Weigh,” combines her mind-body schooling with the revelations and insights she’s made during the past 15 years. She wrote the

book on a weeklong cruise with her family and says the rest just fell into place.

The book will be released nationwide in January. “I can’t wait for people to read it,” she says.

UP CLOSE

IN THE BEGINNING: Greenberg began working in New York City when she was 18 and landed a job as an assistant to entertainer Ben Vereen. “I’d get a call at

3 a.m. that Ben needs a VCR in London , ” she says. “So I’d hop out of bed and get the VCR to him.”

EDUCATION: With two degrees and a handful of certifications, Greenberg considers herself something of a mind-body expert. She received her bachelor’s

Degree in biopsychology from the City University of New York and got her master’s degree in divinity from the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism. She’s

Also a certified hypnotherapist, biofeedback therapist and an ordained minister.

FAMILY: Greenberg has two daughters, Crystal and Jessie. Her husband, Barry, is an acupuncturist in Bradenton .

EXEMPLARY STUDENT: Five years ago, a man in his 30′s attended one of Greenberg’s seminars and eventually lost 100 pounds. “He stops back every

once in awhile,” she says. “It completely changed his life.”